So here's a shot of a vert piece that I shaved a wee bit more than necessary. Notice there's more space for the weld to sit in for the two adjoining pieces. Any more than this is a bit risky.
I've attached two pics of how these mounts fit into the bumper. The interior left side's mount (facing the bumper from the back) is welded correctly. The right interior side is an example of what NOT to do.
A little progress today (no pics) as I Dremel'd off the mistaken tack welds. All pieces are now separated, but the uncut portions need to be ground and flapped off. As I got home late from work and a sushi dinner out, I only had from 8-9pm to grind the tacks off and quit so as to not piss off the neighbors
Hopefully I'll get home at a decent hour so I can grind off the spot welds and tack on the pieces in the right orientation.
Today's limited work consisted of tacking the mis-tacked bumper mount and tacking both bumper mounts to the bumper itself. The tongue in groove laser cutting is pretty precise, but still allows for a wee bit of wiggle just in case you're not completely 100% precise.
I also learned my lesson and made smaller tacks just in case I messed up again
By the way, I love this welder. Nothing wrong with these newer style and definitely higher quality Harbor Freight welders.
Worked from home today which gave me about an hour's more time to work on the bumper. However it was more work with the flap disc and set up than anything else. But this part is crucial as retaining right angles.
Part of today's work was busting out one of my favorite set up tools: the Rockwell Jawhorse. I keep forgetting I have it because I have it folded up w/ a bag over it. But this was a pretty important tool to use as I clamped a flat board to it so I had a completely flat surface to work with. The instructions call out that the hitch receiver and the interior support arms have to be completely flat and flush with the bottom bumper mounts.
However one of the steps I missed was in Step #4 where it calls to weld the inside of the bumper halves. You have to do this because once you tack in the hitch receiver, you cannot get your welder tip in there. So I took my Dremel tool and ground down the metal and welded the interior side. I'll do the exterior later. This was my first time using the welder to do more than a tack. I still have to get used to the higher amperage and the speed by which the wire comes out. I found I was welding much slower like I was welding with a 110v welder.
Anyways after setting the bumper up on the jawhorse, I took the time to use the flap disc to clean down the parts of the tack weld that were extending above the bottom of the bumper mounts. I also did the same for all surfaces that will need to be welded. One tip is to always wipe down the dust and then spray it down with brake cleaner. Guaranteed good results when it dries for welding.
After cleaning off all the metal, I set up the hitch receiver w/ some of the little magnetic triangles. Now here's one small nit I have about the kit (which has been flawless): the receiver hole is a bit bigger than it should be or compared to all the other holes and tab combos. I mean by a hair or two. It was noticeable enough. Anyways I set up the piece and make sure it was on a flat surface and flat/flush with the bumper mounts. After that, I made two tacks (a little heavier than the others due to the ¼" metal) to secure the hitch. I can tell though that the gap and angle isn't perfect. I mean it is off by like a hair. I believe it's because of the pulling effect of welding. In any case, it is what it is and I could remove the tacks to make it perfect.
After tacking and checking the measurements (which were almost spot on. Off by probably 1/32"), used the flap disc to clean off the ends of the two interior arms on both sides. After doing so, I set up the interior arms and clamped it down with the longest damn pair of wood clamps in my garage. However after inspecting the cleaned metal and aligning the pieces, I realized that it would be best to chamfer down the sides of the receiver. See the pic. Because there's barely any room for the weld puddle to rest at the edge/corner where the back of the arms meet the back of the receiver. Since it was time to make/eat dinner, I stopped for the night.
Tomorrow will be some more flap disc'ing metal and then tacking the receiver and arms. I may just grind down the tacks on the receiver and make it 100% perfect since I'm chamfering the end of the receiver. I'll see if I can find some washers on the very thin side or some metal to slip in on either side of the receiver to prevent the weld from pulling the receiver to the first weld side.
I'll also switch to 0.035 wire and welding tip as there's more welding of ¼" metal coming up.
Had a lot of time today to help the wife w/ her stuff as well as the bumper.
In the morning I shot the owner an email asking about a little structural/technical detail on Step 7. In it, there's two angular pieces of tubing that prevents lateral movement of the hitch receiver and I imagine overall support of the bumper's rear side mount. The tubing is long enough to cut to have 90 degree ends. My question is why not weld these pieces at a right angle? Which might allow for the tire to be mounted at the bottom as well. He hasn't replied, but I'm curious if it's still possible to use the bottom stock tire mount.
Step 8 was pretty easy. This step called for spot welding two vertical pieces called 'hatch shields'. As always clean off the metal as well as setting up the metal as prescribed with 90 degree magnets. Oh since I moved up to 0.035 wire, I find this wire definitely more controllable and more forgiving than the thinner gauge 0.030 wire that came with the machine. Anyways, two zaps each and it was done. Since this piece was crucial for the next step, I made sure that the metal was equidistant inside the gap as prescribed and tacked away.
Step 9 was a little bit more complex setting up as this was a multi angle piece that had to hit all sides juuust right before tacking. I bought these adjustable angle adjustable magnets just for this purpose. Unfortunately these barely held this piece of metal, but it did hold it just enough so that i could use one hand to support the metal and the place small tacks where needed. The instructions call to make sure that the part where this piece meets the previous vertical hatch shield piece are colinear with each other. Meaning that the interior corners are touching each other before tacking.
Oh a pro tip: Always or try to tack on the outside surfaces. Why? Well just in case you need to undo things. There's little room on the interior side to grind out or Dremel out a tack weld.
Step 10 was a pretty exciting step in the process as this is the most recognizable part in the process. However doing this single handed was an incredible bitch. The part is heavy and following the instructions unfortunately didn't help. So I ended up using physics and just stood up the bumper on the face side and used gravity to help me align the bumper wings to the ends of the bumper. Unfortunately the end tabs on the end of the bumper didn't quite fit so perfectly in the slot in the side of the bumper. In fact if I were to do it over again, I'd chamfer the bottom side of the end tab on the bumper. That way it would slip into the slot easier, which it isn't quite doing. I need to fix this more on one side and perhaps a dead blow hammer will help the tab fit better into the slot. After making 3 tacks on each wing, I decided to lay it down on the board to make sure things were flat and take measurements per instructions. It was off by a half inch. I was not happy with my work, so I realized that the rear most support pieces might draw in the bumper ends. It did and it came very close to perfect on the width! Well maybe off by 1/16th-ish, but not more than that.
Now that everything is so nicely tacked up, I really don't want to remove it unless I get the bumper mounted and the wings are misaligned. I'm eager to see if the way I tacked it will line up perfectly onto my 4Runner, but I have many more steps to go including welding the tire carrier.
Here's some pics of what the tacked up bumper looks like. Oh, I finished welding the middle seam that adjoins the bumper halves and then taking the flap disk to it. Looks like the bumper is coming out nicely so far, but the real test will be when it gets mounted on my 3rd gen.
Man that's looking pretty good! Loving the progress and I can't wait to see it all finished!
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98 3rz 4x4 5spd- Monstalined, 99 Talls, 4.30 E-locker, Extra Lights
In Progress:
Tundra/Rear Disc Brakes w/parking brake
Roof Rack/Rear Ladder
Sliders
1st Gen Rollbar Shelf
Nice!!! Looking really good!!!
2005 Lexus LX470 - Stock for now...
1998 Toyota 4Runner SR5 V6 4x4 + a bunch of goodies. Lifted, Locked, Illuminated and Armored. Winner,"Best Offroad Truck" - 2010 Pismo Jamboree. It's been upside down and still drives me to work.
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